Courtesy: The Malay Mail


MPSJ confident of top three finish

GHAZ RAMLI

Mar 7

WITHOUT skipper Mohd Zary Affendi Mohd Arif, Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) will be back in preparation for the third circuit of the Celcom National Futsal League which will be held at the Sportsplanet in Penang from Mar 10-12.

The influenced midfielder will be in Tehran, Iran, for the Invitational Futsal Tournament which begins today and ends on Mar 14.

“It is sad I won’t be able to play for MPSJ as we desperately need to win to emerge overall champions but I’m confident my team-mates will be able to put up an impressive performance,” said Zary.

Zary helped MPSJ get into second place in the first two circuits which was held in Johor and Kuantan respectively.

However, MPSJ will also be missing services of key striker K. Tayalan who also boarded the flight to Tehran yesterday.

“It will be tough without them but the others have improved a lot over the season. I’m confident we will be able to finish among the top three,” said MPSJ manager Radzi Arshad.

Meanwhile, national futsal coach P. Balakrishnan who took charge from Brazilian Silvio Machado, named his squad to Tehran in preparation for the AFC Futsal tournament which will be held in Kuantan from April 18-22.

“I’m not setting any target for the squad in Tehran but we will know our weakness and strengths after the tournament which we will work on,” said Balakrishnan.

Malaysia will be competing against China, Thailand, Japan and Kyrgistan at the tournament.




Courtesy: The Malay Mail

Underdogs Metro make their mark

Haresh Deol

Mar 7

THEY called themselves the underdogs but Harian Metro were the clear winners right from the start of the National Press Club (NPC) Futsal tournament held at the No Pain No Gain Centre in Sungai Buloh last Saturday.

Nevertheless, the Metro side were given a tough time when they met Astro in the final. The former won 2-1.

The final also saw the quickest goal scored in the day, with Astro taking less than five seconds to net their first.

Metro equalised and the teams were forced to play extra time where Metro obtained their winning goal.

“I’m surprised actually as we didn’t expect to win. We labelled our team as the underdogs before the meet,” said Metro captain Wan Asrudi Wan Hassan.

Metro took home RM3,000 while Astro collected RM1,750.

However, the real champion of the one-day event was none other than The Malay Mail’s female goalkeeper Najiah Najib. Her gutsy and agile moves not only received the crowd’s support but also gave her recognition as the ‘best female player’ and ‘find of the tournament’ awards, en route to pocketing RM250.

The Malay Mail team were edged 2-1 by hosts National Press Club in the third place playoff.

In the plate final, NST Reds lost 2-1 to the Sabah Journalists Association team despite beating the Sabahans 3-0 in the earlier rounds. However, NST’s Ajitpal Singh was named the best goalkeeper of the tournament.

The meet was part of the National Press Club’s initiative to getting media folks together in the spirit of sport. Prizes will be given during NPC’s annual dinner scheduled on April 1.

SJA's trip to KL was made possible thanks to the Pan Pacific Kuala Lumpur and SsyangYong.



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com